The Blurry Days of Bangkok

Let us first start by saying that arriving into Bangkok - with no reservations - on a Saturday night around 8pm is NOT something we recommend any of you doing. That being said, we were let off at the Eastern Bus Terminal just shy of 8pm on a Saturday night and aside from our infamous Rough Guide to Thailand...we knew NOTHING of this gigantic city. Every budget traveler heads directly to Khoa San road, the stretch of noisy guesthouses and bars that are widely known for being scandalous and debaucherous. Trying to stay away from this area, we took 4 forms of transportation (Bangkok's skytrain, 1 taxi and 2 tuk-tuks) before finally landing at a guesthouse north of the Khoa San road area. Totally wiped out from being denied by roughly 10 guesthouses before finding this one, we ate dinner and crashed.

We woke up the next day, Sunday, and decided to take advantage of two weekend-only markets. One was a small floating food market while the other can only be described by saying it is the world's largest shopping extravaganza! Literally, this market took up a whole section of our Nancy Chandler map (great, by the way) and sells everything you can possibly imagine. After viewing the floating market (the picture above of the woman cooking in her boat) we headed to the "Weekend Market" to find thousands and thousands of Thais and falangs browsing the goods. It was a mass of humanity floating around and the sights were pretty good. We purchased a few things (rare for the prancers) and headed back to our guesthouse.

The next few days were rather blurry for several reasons: one, the heat was extreme (making Tom a yawning machine) while the other was Jill enduring one of her typical intestinal battles, this one being a little tougher than normal. We viewed the big sights: The Grand Palace, Wat Pho and a ridiculous caberet show called the Calypso (absolutely horrid and a waste of precious Baht). These sights were great, but with the circumstances being what they were, our experiences lacked a bit by what we were dealing with. Most anyone can come into Asia for a few weeks and endure the heat, knowing full well that they will be back in the comfortable controlled A/C environment of home soon. For us (especially Tom), the heat really adds up over the course of 3 months and can take a toll. Bangkok just happened to be one of the places the heat added up for Tom. This was coupled, as mentioned above, with a tough intestinal struggle for Jill and the days became "blurry".

There WERE some highlights though and the best being 2 hour Thai massages we received at Wat Pho, home of the original, most prestigious Thai Massage school. After boldly saying "Llang, llang" (strong, strong) to the girls, these two ladies proceeded to apply the deepest bodywork pressure (gently, the way thai massage should be) we have experienced thus far in Thailand. These massages completely invigorated our bodies and minds and we finally broke the haze and started enjoying the sights again. We also loved hopping onto rickety boats, one of the main transport systems in Bangkok, to capture the amazing sights from the ever-active river and canal networks (klongs). The city THRIVES on these waterways and you can really take in the melding of the old Bangkok with it's glorious wats and new Bangkok with it's ritzy hotels and fancy skyscrapers.

There were other wonderful aspects of Bangkok that were somewhat surprising to us. These were how clean and alive the city was. Unlike what many might think for such a huge city, Bangkok has a rather palatable presence on the surface. The other element that pleasantly surprised us was how physically active the city seems to be. Every evening in their largest park, Lumphini, thousands of Thais come together for aerobics (basically kickboxing). The sight is mesmerizing as heaps (getting ready for New Zealand lingo) of thais are perfectly synchronized and working out to the beats of the music. The whole scene was wicked! (again, preparing for New Zealand lingo).

So, although the title seems like the days were non-descript, they were actually filled with light exploration and good fun. The city is full of so much and we were glad we spent the time we did there. But that being said...BRING ON THE ISLANDS!!! (smile)